NEW HAVEN, Conn. -
The Robert J.H. Kiphuth Director of Swimming Frank Keefe and the Yale University swimming and diving teams have announced their schedule for the upcoming 2008-09 season. In total, the squad will compete in 17 swim meets, including three at home in the Kiphuth exhibition pool. The Bulldogs start practice early Wednesday morning with their annual "Midnight Madness".

The Bulldogs kick off the 2008-2009 season, as they did last year, with a home meet against McGill University from Montreal, Quebec on Oct. 24.

Three weeks later, the Bulldogs will play host again, this time to Columbia on Nov. 14. Last year, this meet was held at Columbia in New York. The Bulldogs and the Lions finished right side-by-side at EISLs last spring -- the Yale men were third and Columbia was fourth, while the Yale women were fourth and Columbia was third -- so this promises to be another tightly-contested meet.

The Bulldogs will then head to the Terrier Invite at Boston University on Nov. 24. Last year, the men finished second at the invite with a score of 905 and the women took seventh with 391.5 points.

With a couple weeks off, the Bulldogs then head into one of their more hectic weekends of the schedule. Yale's top swimmers will head off to the USA Short Course Nationals in Atlanta, Ga., on Dec. 4-6. The rest of the team will head to Charlottesville, Va., to swim in the University of Virginia Invite on Dec. 4-6 or Piscataway, N.J., to dive at the Galbraith Diving Invitational on Dec. 6-7.

The Bulldogs will then have some time off for winter recess, when they will head to San Juan, Puerto Rico for their winter training.

When the Bulldogs resume swimming, they will face a swing that includes many of the other Ivy League teams. It begins on Jan. 9 and Jan. 10 in Ithaca, N.Y., against Cornell and Navy. Last year the men defeated Cornell 167.5 to 132.5 but fell to Navy 159.0 to 141.0. The women swept the dual meet taking down Cornell 219-81 while handling Navy 174-126.

From there, the Bulldogs head to meets against Dartmouth and Penn on Jan. 17, Fairfield on Jan. 24 and at Harvard with Princeton on Jan. 30-31. The Crimson was the Ivy League champion on the men's side last year, while the Tigers won the women's championship.

After a meet at Connecticut on Feb. 7, the Bulldogs end their regular season at home against Brown on Feb. 15.

The Bulldogs finish out their season with the big championships. The Ivy League Championships are on Feb. 26-28 for the women. The ECAC Championships are Feb. 27-Mar 3. The men have their Ivy League Championships on Mar. 5-7. The season culminates with the NCAA Zone Diving Championship on Mar. 13-15 and the NCAA Championships on Mar. 19-21. Last year, Jeffrey Lichtenstein '08 competed for the men at the NCAA Zone Diving Championship, taking third in both the three-meter and one-meter diving competition. This year's captain Alex Righi competed for the men at the NCAA Swimming Championships, placing second in the 50-yard freestyle, 11th in the 100-yard backstroke, and second in the 100-yard freestyle.

The Bulldogs will begin their season this Wednesday, Oct. 1 when they officially begin practice. The Bulldogs will show up at Payne Whitney Gymnasium at midnight Tuesday night for what the team has deemed "Midnight Madness." The swimmers will hop into the pool for a rousing game of sharks and minnows, followed by a pizza party. After that, it is down to business the following afternoon as the Bulldogs get ready for their tough schedule.